Freedom

Then, without warning, the old control board left intact from the station’s prior function flickered into life. Lines of colour denoting tracks, blocks of illumination signifying individual carriages, all began to click and chatter as they activated.
Rufin shot a worried look out of the windows of the cupola and heard the mutter of dozens of electric motors coming alive.
The watch officer looked at the consoles before him in surprise. “That… That’s not possible,” he insisted, coughing again. “All remote operations of station systems were locked down, the hard lines were severed…” He swallowed hard, beads of sweat appearing on his high forehead. “I think someone is trying to move the trains.”
Below, the ornate copper departure boards for all the platforms began whirring in a rattling chorus of noise, each one flashing up destination after destination. With a sharp report, they all stopped at once, all of them showing the same thing; End Of The Line.
…Descending an enclosed stairwell, he caught sight of the western platforms. Monorails there were filling with prisoners, each one closing its doors and moving off seemingly of its own will, carrying the inmates to freedom. The first few to go had ploughed through the barricades across the lines; now there was nothing to stop a mass exodus.
…The Rendezvous was a spur-line outside a storage depot in the foothills, several kilometres beyond the capital. Under Tariel’s guiding hand, the simple drive-brains of the monorails had obeyed his command and cut fast routes through the network that confused the PDF spy drones sent to follow them.

Chapter Ten